PAUL O’Grady has told how he almost missed out on his MBE.
He received the gong in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, announced in June.
About to return for a new series of his Channel 4 teatime chat show, Paul thought it was a joke.
“I got a letter,” he explains in an interview just released by C4.
“But I’ve got a weird friend who always sends me letters, looking really official, saying, ‘Dear Mr O’Grady, we have reason to believe you are running a brothel at weekends.’
Or, ‘Dear Mr O’Grady, this baby-farming has got to cease.’
“So I thought it was one of those. I thought it was quite a weak attempt.

“And then they rang up and said ‘Why haven’t you sent your letter back?’
“And then the penny dropped.
“So I rang the family and my sister. It was my cousin in Ireland, a lovely old fella, who said ‘It would be very crass and ignorant if you turned it down.’”
Aside from his return to TV, Paul is also about to publish his autobiography – At My Mother’s Knee…and Other Low Joints.
“I only go up to when I’m 18 years old as well. It’s longer than Lord of the Rings.
“I’m having panic attacks over it. I go to bed, and I think ‘Why did I put that in?’”
Paul says he’s now started on the second volume – as well as writing some 13 short horror stories.
The Paul O’Grady Show is back on C4 at 5pm on Monday Sept 22.
At My Mother’s Knee…and Other Low Joints
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